Benchmarks: AS SSD Benchmark

The fastest drive in the AS SSD Benchmark's sequential read test was the new Samsung 840 120GB which reached 504.5MB/s. The Crucial m4 64GB wasn’t a great deal slower hitting 502MB/s, while the 128GB version sustained 492.7MB/s. The older Samsung SSD 830 64GB also managed a transfer speed of 494.9MB/s making it one of the fastest drives tested.

Further down the graph we find the Kingston HyperX 3K 90GB which managed a respectable 444.3MB/s, making it faster than the 417MB/s of the OCZ Vertex 4 128GB. The slowest of the bunch was the Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB which achieved a throughput of 198.2MB/s due to its use of asynchronous NAND flash.

Again we find that the write performance is what separates these drives. When compared to their larger capacity siblings these smaller SSDs suffer when it comes to write performance.

The OCZ Vertex 4 128GB is the fastest SSD on this test yet it's still 12% slower than its 256GB equivalent. Nevertheless the performance hit seen when going from 256GB to 128GB is nothing compared to the delta between the 128GB and 64GB drives, a staggering 51% reduction in performance.

It was a similar case when looking at the Crucial m4 range. The 128GB model was just 13% slower than the larger 256GB drive, yet the 64GB version was a whopping 43% slower than the 128GB model.

And yet, when it came to sequential write performance the Vertex 4 was a clear winner with the 64GB model beating the larger capacity drives from Kingston, Crucial and Samsung.

The Crucial m4 series (64GB, 128GB and 256GB models) all performed within 10MB/s of one another. The only SSDs to suffer in this test were the Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB and Kingston HyperX 3K 90GB as they delivered just 90.4MB/s and 114.9MB/s.

The OCZ Vertex 4 128GB and 64GB shine again on this test while the Crucial m4 128GB came in third spot with 156.9MB/s, followed by the Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB with 138.9MB/s. The Samsung SSDs struggled, with the new Samsung SSD 840 120GB delivering just 101.5MB/s while the old SSD 830 64GB was capable of a mere 46.6MB/s.

As you can see the read access times are very similar with no more than 0.090ms separating the fastest SSD from the slowest.

There is a considerably larger difference when comparing the write access times. The Crucial m4 series stands out here, unfortunately for being quite slow. In comparison the OCZ Vertex 4 and Samsung SSD 840/830 drives were much faster.